Tan Kian Hwa, Zeng Xiao Xia, Sasajala Piriya, Yeo Ailing, Udolph Gerald
Institute of Medical Biology; Singapore.
Chimerism. 2011 Jan;2(1):16-8. doi: 10.4161/chim.2.1.14692.
The transfer of fetal cells into mothers during pregnancy and their organ specific integration is a well recognized phenomenon in placental vertebrates. Recently, it has been reported that some fetal cells found in the mothers have progenitor cell-like features such as multilineage differentiation potential and as a consequence they were termed pregnancy associated progenitor cells (PAPC). The multilineage differentiation potential suggested some level of cellular plasticity, which these cells share with other stem or progenitor cells. In this context, we have shown that PAPCs indeed express neural stem cell and markers for developing neurons in the brain and that PAPCs morphologically mature into neurons over time. The stem/progenitor properties of PAPCs raises the hope that they might be valuable for studying the functional integration of foreign cells into preexisting tissues and organs, for example in cellular therapies. The functional integration of transplanted cells and their connectivity to the host circuitry is still a major bottleneck in cellular therapies particularly for the brain. The animal models of fetomaternal microchimerism might provide valuable insights into the mechanism how cells survive, migrate, integrate and differentiate in a foreign environment of a host. This review discusses some of the recent findings in the field of fetomaternal microchimerism. It also tries to identify some major gaps of knowledge and raises some questions resulting from the recent advances. Studying fetomaternal microchimerism and the properties of PAPCs in greater detail might pave the way to advance cell based regenerative medicine as well as transplantation medicine.
孕期胎儿细胞向母体的转移及其器官特异性整合是胎盘脊椎动物中一种广为人知的现象。最近，有报道称在母体中发现的一些胎儿细胞具有祖细胞样特征，如多谱系分化潜能，因此它们被称为妊娠相关祖细胞（PAPC）。多谱系分化潜能表明这些细胞具有一定程度的细胞可塑性，这是它们与其他干细胞或祖细胞共有的特性。在这种情况下，我们已经表明，PAPC确实表达神经干细胞和大脑中发育神经元的标志物，并且随着时间的推移，PAPC在形态上会成熟为神经元。PAPC的干/祖细胞特性带来了一种希望，即它们可能对研究外来细胞在现有组织和器官中的功能整合具有重要价值，例如在细胞治疗中。移植细胞的功能整合及其与宿主回路的连接仍然是细胞治疗尤其是脑部细胞治疗的一个主要瓶颈。母胎微嵌合体的动物模型可能会为细胞在宿主的外来环境中如何存活、迁移、整合和分化的机制提供有价值的见解。这篇综述讨论了母胎微嵌合体领域的一些最新发现。它还试图找出一些主要的知识空白，并提出一些由近期进展引发的问题。更详细地研究母胎微嵌合体和PAPC的特性可能为推进基于细胞的再生医学以及移植医学铺平道路。
